In the simplest case, an illumination system comprises a control device and at least one illumination component, which are connected to one another via a DALI bus.
The control device may have operating elements or be driven by a higher-order control system. Examples of a higher-order control system are so-called building management systems such as EIBs and LONs. The connection to a higher-order control system generally takes place via a so-called gateway.
An illumination component generally contains a light source and an operating device suitable for this purpose, it being possible for the operating device to be controlled by the DALI bus. The light source may be, for example, a fluorescent lamp, a halogen incandescent lamp or a light-emitting diode, and the operating device may be, for example, an electronic operating device or a switched mode power supply.
In order that the control device can control an illumination component, the control device needs to address the illumination component via its long or short address. According to the DALI standard, the long address is 24 bits and the short address is 6 bits long. In an initialization process, which is triggered by the control device, each connected illumination component produces a random long address. Then, the control device searches for all of the long addresses which are provided in the illumination system and stores them.
With most control devices it is possible, inter alia, for illumination settings to be stored and illumination components to be combined to form groups. However, this is only possible with short addresses. The illumination components therefore also need to be allocated short addresses in addition to the long addresses generated by the illumination components themselves. This generally takes place when an illumination system is initially set up. According to the prior art, short addresses are allocated with the aid of a device for short-address allocation in accordance with the following method:
Before a short address can be allocated, the abovementioned long address needs to be generated. All of the illumination components installed in the illumination system are addressed one after the other by their long addresses and instructed by a control command to make themselves noticeable. In the simplest case, the illumination component is switched on. It can be switched on, for example, only for a short period of time or switched on and off a number of times, as a result of which a blinking signal is produced. On the basis of this, an operator establishes which illumination component it is, i.e. where it is located. Thereupon, the operator sets the desired short address using the device for short-address allocation and possibly carries out group assignment.
The method according to the prior art has the following disadvantages: when the system is initially set up, the presence of an operator is always required to allocate the short addresses. With larger systems, this may take several hours. In addition, this method is susceptible to faults since the short addresses need to be input manually.